If you are trying to reduce snap there are two way (or actually 3 ways) to go about doing it. 1 is to go with a lighter spring as you mentioned. 2nd is to go with a smaller diameter clutch bell. You do not want to go up or use a larger diameter bell as this would mean that the shoes have to move further in-order to contact the bell meaning a later engagement, more snap and as you mentioned worse run time. The 3rd method is to go with heavier weight shoes. Due to centrifical forces the heavier shoe will apply more force on the spring resulting in an earlier engagement. In essence though this has the same effect as running a lighter spring. From a run time standpoint you always want to go with the earliest possible engagement and most positive lock (engagement) of the shoes in the clutch as possible as this significantly increases run time. We have found as much as a 45 second difference for instance between running a 3 shoe set up and our 4 shoe clutch. It's good that you are spending time playing around with clutch set ups as there are significant gains to be had both in driveability as well as run time and is an area that is not really understood by many!

:weird: The diameter inside the clutch bell does not change when you change your clutch bell. it's the tooth count. So your shoe engagment distance will be the same no matter if it's a 12 tooth or 20 tooth. You gearing on the other hand, does. A smaller count will be spool up quicker and max out faster ( better acceleration) where a larger tooth count will have a higher top speed.

Not trying to be mean but I know how you were thinking.:lol:

there are many clutch bells that differ in I.D. , thats what Ron is frefering to;)


teeth count is totally separate as you mentioned:D


keep up the good work Neal !!! :nod:

its not all about brands , its about being a real , honest willing to help merchant serving your rc community , thats what its really al about !!

Yes you are correct. But I wouldn't use a clutch bell diameter as a tuning tool when you could use spring diam and shoe weight. Changing the diameter would cause used shoes( not worn out) to ride differently and you would not get a full surface contact. To me that seems like a waist. I mean you paid for the whole shoe, you might as well use it right. unless you put in shoes that are set up for that diameter bell. Just seems more of a hassel to me. I cant really speak about other people, but I like simplicity. Softer springs/ heavier shoes to take some snap away.

so I am going to assume that the four shoe setup yeilded better runtime, but I would just like to make sure. If this is true, could you explain why or at least your theory why this is?

4 shoe don't slip as much as 3 shoe. Especially with modified engines. Less slip= more usable power and less wasted fuel. After switching all my clutches from 3 to 4 shoe, I would never go back. Better use of power, more tuning options and way better bottom end snap not to mention longer shoe life and better runtimes.

Houston is correct about what I was getting at. Regarding your comments I would never use the amount of teeth on the clutch bell or in essence I should say the final drive ratio as a means to tune my clutch engagement ;) You alter gearing to suit the track layout, you alter clutch engagement to suit the tack conditions. Those are two completely different things imho and you would never in my opinion want to alter your drive ration in order to make your clutch work properly. Having said that though altering the engagement by adjusting the id of the clutch bells is a viable tuning method and is something that a lot of the pro's are aware of and do, they just don't mention it a lot because it requires quite a bit of measurement to figure out the differences in ID between the different manufacturers.

Hotdog, to answer your questions for the best possible run time you want to have the most positive engagement with the least amount of slip. Usually I have found that this happens with 4 shoe type clutches as there is more contact surface actually engaging the clutch bell. So this still gives you the ability to dictate engagement point through spring selection, and when the shoes actually engage the larger contact surface that a 4 shoe clutch delivers results in less slip so a more positive engagement = less wasted fuel. This is valid in normal to high grip type of situations, in completely blown out track conditions the added slip of a 3 shoe and something like 2x alu and 1x carbon can potentially be beneficial. So that is Ron's clutch tuning 101 after a couple of cosmo's lol! Hope that this helps!!!

Little quiet..
 

Where is everybody..?

Well not all of us live in the desert, lol. Here in the NE our season is about to start. That is if it ever stops raining!

A beautiful 11 C (52F) day here in The Peg with snow 99% gone and the ground is drying fast !

Neal and I are planning on burning our first tanks on the ground this year with our DM1's this weekend:cool:

I wonder what motor's Neals going to have ready for me :sneaky:

Cannot wait to get on the new track when it's ready !

WOOT..

Ooops I pushed the button:eek:

I'm sure it going to something very crazy with tons of smooth power with great run times maybe the OS 25 ;)

Finally tonight i had a club race with my clocked B5 with 2058 pipe in my mbx6t. and all i can say is WOW! i use to race with the clocked speed xz-b and i thought that was super fast but im wrong!! The B5 seems faster, defaintly more runtime than the speed. i run on a big track, very loose and the B5 was able to get 10min+, the xz-b was only able 8.5min during race conditions. I have just about a gal on it, and neal said it was going to be faster!!!! I can't wait!!! I couldn't finish the race beacuse the rear axle broke. So we will see next time!!!

I am going to give a permanent home to my Clockwork banners. They will be hung at ET motopark in Apache Junction Arizona. That will be my home track and the place they get the most exposure. Thanks Neal and John for sending me banners. I will post pics as soon as I hang em.

how well will the 086 work on the modded JL? I know the jp3 is best but dont have one. I have losi pipes and some 086's